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NBC News in Orbit

Network newscasts have been known to go to great lengths to find new viewers, but the “NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams” has taken that search to a place where few, if any, anchors, have gone before: outer space. In an interview from the International Space Station on Friday via satellite, an American astronaut, Daniel M. Tani, right, said he and his crew members “actually watch the ‘NBC Nightly News.’ ” Mr. Tani was responding to a question from an NBC correspondent, Tom Costello, about how the space station crew stays current on world events. The network said that Mr. Costello had been unaware that NASA regularly transmits podcasts of “Nightly News” (minus commercials) to the space station. The astronauts also receive news updates from The Houston Chronicle, one of NASA’s hometown newspapers. Brett Holey, director of “Nightly News,” said NBC began making the program available to the space station in early 2006. It did so, he said, after a “psychological support scientist” for NASA suggested the transmission as a way to ease isolation.